Posts tagged ‘Faith ‘

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; loves does not parade itself, is not
puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no
evils; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things”

This has been one of my favorite verses, but I di not fully understand it until
recently. About a week ago, my friend/coworker/office mom sat down at the my
desk to elaborate on her Facebook post that I had reposted. The post was a mother
telling her daughter then looking for a mate, to place the gentleman’s name in these
verses and ask is this true. Is he kind? Is he envious? Is he prideful? Is he arrogant?
Is he rude?……..etc etc etc. (Remember, the King and I, the original not the remake
with Jodie Foster). If her daughter could replace the word love with the boy’s name
and the statement be true then he might pass mustard. I had reposted because I
thought it was a great way to teach girls how to pick a good man, and one I needed
to hear myself. My friend said that she needed to take these verses a step further
and apply them to herself. I am embarrassed to say that I was a bad friend and was
throwing a pity party while she was talking about this, but it did stick with me. I
have been yeaning to know how to love people I do not see eye to eye with. I look at
this country and see that it is broken and needs to be repaired but I do not see that
happened if we are constantly on different ends of the spectrum. But this is it, you
make love an action, so many times we think of love as a feeling but is the true
everlasting unconditional love? No, it is romantic love that many of us have read in
romance novels or watch in movies. It is real, but without the love the romantic love
fades with time.

I want to learn to love like this, and God has blessed me in the last several weeks and
months to put people in my life that show God’s love. Lord, thank You for blessing
me with these beautiful ladies and gentleman, ask open my heart to learn and show
to love.

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Today, I sit here writing a blog about my favorite love story while you are about to see your love after twenty years of being apart. I am excited and a little jealous that you will soon meet Jesus face to face and see Papa again. I pray that you are not suffering and that your journey from this world is quick and peaceful. I wonder what is going to happen to the family now that the glue holding us together is dissolving. Will we stay in contact? Or will we just see each other at weddings and funerals? Then Papa passed our family traditions started to fade. It started with the 4th of July, the first holiday after Papa passed and then progressed to Thanksgiving the next year with Auntie’s heart attack. Then Christmas as us kids grew up and moved away and had children of our own. A few months ago, when, I drove back to Little Town, USA to help pack your house so it could be sold, it was a surreal feeling. I remember driving into town thinking, there is not a single reason to ever come back here. I do not generally visit Auntie and Uncle, and if I did it would not be here. The saying, “You can never return home,” felt so true. I have wondered where we will gather as a family once you have passed, because your house would have been where we would gather. Are we even going to gather as one big family? The time between a passing and the funeral is always a special time to just stop, reflect, and just remember the times with the one who has passed. Are we going to get that as a extended family or just going to be our branch of the family tree gathered together? I do not know, what will happened but I know we will be okay. You have raised all us kids to be strong and faithful and love God with all our hearts. GG, I am so blessed to have you as a Grandma. You took me in then things were rough at home and taught me to love my Mom through our differences and for who she is by letting go of the past. You would tell me that you did not know how I did it, being a single Mom, but GG you raised your younger brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and many more kids in the community. Even my children have memories with their Great Great Grandma, how awesome is that. I wish, I could just have one more minute with you just to tell you, I love you. And, well, to see whether you would love or hate the Christmas present, I made you :). It is your favorite color red, but I did tear a Baptist hymnal up to use the pages. I can see both your reactions: you loving it and then the scolding for destroying a hymnal. But, then, I was committing my felony (the destruction of the hymnal), I was remembering all the hymns you would sing while you went about your business. You said you could not carry a tune, but I loved to hear you sing. I still love to hear those old hymns, it is like being at your house during summer vacation. I loved summers with you and Papa. You would sit me up on the counter and teach me to cook, well, try to teach me. On Saturday’s, we would take you to the beauty shop and we would help Papa clean house. Then we would pick you up and go to Hardee’s for a roast beef sandwich, then on to do the groceries shopping. I remember our allowance was 1.50 a week. I remember, it taking two very long painful weeks to save three dollars. 🙂 I learned so much from you, but the biggest were to love, fight, and have compassion. I will miss you, but I will be okay. The hard part is watching my children lose you. GG, how did you help your children through their loses? I did not know, my heart could break this much. I truly understand a Mom’s heart breaking for her children. The heartbreak their dad causing it nothing compared to this. We will be well, GG, because we know you will be with Jesus, and is exactly how I explained it. I am so excited that anytime now, Jesus’ is going to welcome you with open arms and that someday, we will see you again. We will all love and miss you, but rejoice that someday we will meet again because this is not our home.

All my heart,
sweetpea

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2015 New Years Resolutions Goals Plan Path JourneyWe all know that resolutions are rarely successful. Goals are great but must be outlined then draw and quarterly with little give. Plans are just dreams that have not become goals. Path is the road to walk, but the journey is how we walk the path. I want 2015 to be an amazing journey where I can finally get out of the desert. Ever feel like the Israelities in your life wandering around the desert for forty years? I am not forty, though my hair says, I could be fifty or sixty and have only been suck for the last three years. I realized through many closed doors and much prayer that I have to learn to be content with what I am blessed with. I have a job that I am good at, but I stopped taking the initiative and lost the drive to go the extra mile, but just in the last few weeks God has opened my eyes to see that I have amazing coworker who are becoming friends, and personally, I just want to be a better Mom, and get my ab muscle back :). Last year, I learned that I cannot be both mom and dad filling in for their dad absents and no one can ever replace him or fill that void but God. I can focus on our relationships and on our family relationship to help give them a solid foundation. I want to spend 2015 learning what I can do to have a better attitude and mindset. To not be that mom, about to rip her hair out in the middle of the Target line because her kids are running a muck or the disgruntled employee who does what is ask while bellyaching in the inside. I read a book called QBQ several months ago, and then I begging God for an answer for a guide for 2015 this was my answer. I rediscovered on New Years Day the author and his wife has also written a book called Parenting the QBQ way. So, I rushed down to the Baptist Book Store and purchased their only copy. My new motto “What is the QBQ?”. Which stands for the Question Behind the Questions, both books talk about IQ andQBQ. An IQ is the incorrect question and theQBQ question behind the question being the better question to ask. IQ start with why, what, who and general use you, where aQBQ contains anI and an action. It is a retraining of yourself to get go of what is ready done (good, bad, or ugly) and focusing on what you yourself can do moving forward.Motto: QBQ
Bible Versus:

Psalms 46:10a – Be still, and know that I am God

Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope

Matthew 7:7-8 – Ask, and It will be given to you: seek, and your will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Proverbs 31: This is the kind of woman, I want to be

Workouts: Five Minutes Abs – daily
Tiny House: I will have the trailer and shell built by the end of 2015, but I am going to work super hard on having in complete
Massage: Complete my freshman term

What does your 2015 journey look like?

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I have been reading this fascinating book about vaccinations. I have not finished it so I have not yet done my due diligence, so I have not made an opinion on the book but it has definitely kept my interest. I am not here to preach yay or nay, that is not my decision to make but your. I just encourage you to do your own research and decide yourself. I have never been one to let anyone tell me what to do without first looking into it myself. Honestly, the arguments on either side are very influential. Look for good strong reliable information, unbiased information (or know to weed the bias out), talk with your doctor, review both sides, and pray before making your decisions. Take notes in your research and write down why you made your decision because their are going to people on both side trying to change your mind. But, remember, you are going to be you family’s best advocate and you can only make the best decision you can with the information we have today.

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Yesterday, started out badly, mainly because I did not got to bed early enough the night before. Then the arguing started about wearing weather appropriate clothes. Then word of my third rejection and that then the tears started and battle not to let them fall. Then, I talked with a friend and expressed all my feeling about the day and this stupid crazy school girl crush I have. Which I am guess is driving to roller coaster of emotion, because I am 32 and happy being a single mom. Why do I have this crush? I digress, but I felt loads better after my confession and my day improved. I even worked on my RV living plan.

This morning Bible versus was:

Galatians 1:10 For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

Wow…I have to stop trying to impress others and just focus on God. God knows what the plans are for my life and my hearts desires and He will bring them to pass in His time not mine.

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Have you ever wondered if God was there? Over the last several days, I have been praying for answered to various questions, and I got nothing. I mean I know God is there but I feel so lost and empty sometimes. So, is God just sitting back to see if I have learned the lessons to be able to handle these situations? Am I missing the answer? Why does the valley seem so empty? I what to believe God is here with me in this valley but I do not feel Him. I feel sad, scared, frustrated and a lone. Then, I do cry out to God for direction……nothing. I know the Bible says, God is will us through the valleys (Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Ps 23:4) but why cannot a feel Him? How can I follow God then I cannot hear or feeling His presence in my heart? How do I know the steps to take? Is this where my faith comes in? Or, maybe this is my lack of God knowledge? Or, maybe Satan is blocking the message, in hopes I will rumble. I do not know. I do know that our hearts can deceive us, and that no matter what I feel God is here and that even if I make the wrong decisions through this valley He is still here.

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What an awesomely blessed day today is. I have installed a negative thought detector so negative thoughts send off warning signs to get Satan deceitfully lies out of my head. So far, God has enabled me to chase those horribly negative thoughts off, and I am so excited. I have been reading Joyce Meyer book Change Your Words, Change your Life over the last few weeks and it is an amazing book. I am one of those enthusiastic dorky people who even the smallest thing (like my friend giving me M&Ms) gives me great joy. However, somewhere over the years, I have learned to bury sharing that joy, and instead, showing the world what I perceive those around me except me to be out of fear (fear of rejection). But in reading Joyce’s book, I have begun sharing the joy with those around me, and today, a faced my world with the all blessings of God and a big sweetpea smile braces and all. 🙂

I will not live in fear derived from Satan’s deceit anymore. Joyce says, “We are energized by positive words and weakened by negative ones. Words can make us angry or they can calm us down; therefore, they must have power” (Page 6). A word or words can change the course of our lives. As I look back over my life, I can see how just a few words changed the whole course of my life. Do you remember when the book The Prayer of Jabez first came out in the 90s? One of the few parts, I read stated that we should pray for blessings, which at the time I though selfish. Joyce says basically the same thing in her book. I remember thinking the first time, I read Change Your Words, Change your Life and thought what if I am not blessed. But, blessing are not always this big huge thing. God blesses us in so many different way throughout the day from M&Ms to a card to a simple smile from a strangler. We just need to see through God’s eyes, so we do not miss them. Today, is an awesomely blessed day.

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Friday night, I had a conversation that ended badly. I did not know how badly until about an hour ago, however, instead of being sad or angry or throwing a poor me party, I was able to stop and see even through I lost (the friendship end) a friend, what a huge blessing that friend and their family was been on me. Regardless of how the friendship ended, I have truly been blessed and those blessings will go with me throughout my life. I have learned: how to be more positive on the outside, thankful, truly began to love with prejudice, letting go, being less prideful, and faith. I am sad but mainly joyful because I have learned so much over the last year. God has blessed me through the people He has placed in my life. Friday night as I drove home, I asked God why I cannot have that friend that you are best friends with through your whole life and knows you inside and outside and He did not answer directly. I already knew the answer, when I have a dear friend, I tend to go to the phone instead of the throne. I mean God is that friend. He knows me inside and outside including the number of hairs on my head. He brings the people into my life for reason if and then they leave is He’s plan, too. God is always here and knows the desires of my heart and I do not have to wonder, if I follow Him, He will give me the desires of my heart. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 NKJV And, even through the friendship is ended they are carried in my heart, because they were in my path for a reason. Again, the God’s hand guiding me, I am going to remember my blessings and forget any negative feelings that Satan will use to deceive me with.

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I do not know what to say. On July 9, the thread of trust was broken, but I have learned so much from the roller coaster of emotion that followed. I have gone from wanting to: scream in angry, curse in disbelieve, cry at the pain, sadness, and lost, walk away never to look back, hatred and a broken promise, kick myself for trusting, find help for the eating disorders, holding a hand as someone who has been there, talked about my hopes, dreams, and plans on raising the munchkins. I had valued your ideas, opinions, and experiences as I do my own mom. I cannot say that I am happy at the untruths told as the munchkins have been the ones hurt the most, but The Lord has used and my other relationships to show me a little understanding of the true meaning of love.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (I Corinthians 13:4-7 NKJV)

With God’s help, I am going to let go and think of this experience as blessing like Laura Story song Blessing.

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Well, the big meeting with the counselor and family was today. It did not go as well as, I hoped, but did not go as terrible as I feared. I tried to keep it to the facts, not to harp on the past, but to set the boundaries to hopefully rebuild the trust that has been broken on all sides. I did pretty well not rebutting their opinions and feeling and not interrupting too much til a comment was made about my mothering stills at the end. Then, I got a bit frustrated, because it was like the whole meeting was a waste and snapped a bit. Since then, I have been running the comment over and over in my head trying to justify being angry. I just want to tell them that what was said was totally unforgivable, but I cannot get myself working up over it. Would I be justified? Absolutely. Is it worth losing my peace over? Nope. And, honestly, it did not even get up my skin which is a big improvement for me, because even a few weeks ago that comment would have started a soapbox speech. I believe it is an answer to prayers. The meeting ending on a negative note, so I do not know if history is going to meeting itself or not. I do know that I have to be open up enough to step out in faith in opening myself up for the trust to be rebuilt.

Today, I wrote down several Bible verses to focus on during the meeting to help me keep my peace, allow them to voice their opinions and feelings, to not fact fight, and have a positive attitude.

And, whenever y ou stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses – Mark 11:25

Then Peter come to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, & I forgive? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven – Matthew 18:21-22

But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them – Luke 6:32

And, we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose – Romans 8:28

But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you – Luke 6:27

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you – Matthew 5:44

I also listen to the audiobooks: Boundaries by Henry Cloud, The DNA of Relationships by Dr. Gary Smalley, Love is a Verb & Love is a Way of Life both by Dr. Gary Chapman to help me be prepared for this meeting. I did not want to just be the last six years of build up angry rolling out but setting the boundaries and looking to the future.

It was neat to me how the book Boundaries and The DNA of Relationships both reference a lot of the same stuff. The biggest help is knowing what my fear button which is why many of the things that are said get under my skin and working on react correcting to it. Because your button is always going to get pushed, it is how you to react then your button gets pushed that is the important part. Today showed that I not where I used to be, but I am not where I need to be.